Pain in the Pines

John and I volunteered at the Pain in the Pines race last weekend. Kip was the course designer, so he put us to work doing some fun things - vetting CP's in the woods, setting a few CP's for an early morning run around the lake, and handling some special tests.

I biked up to CP5 with a pack of balloons and a camera. Teams were required to blow up one balloon and then transport it back to TA without putting the balloon in a backpack:





John was in charge of a basketball special test (as teams were in their boats, they had to throw a basketball into a net on the pier). I believe the Steel Sports race website will post some photos of that at some point.

After that was done, John ran the "scooter and mystery eating event" leg. Teams rode scooters around the EZ loop bike trails - and the scooters had been kept secret until after the race had started.



One person per team picked a mystery item to eat - which turned out to be M&M's, candy corn, and strawberry malt balls.



I hung around the TA and took random shots of racers coming in and out:



Katrina running the check-in/out table:



Team Vignette finished in first place overall, despite Julie's mountain bike crash where she somehow jammed a stick up her nose! Wow!



More shots from the TA:








John after collecting CP flags and ribbons from leg 3:

Rodney and Katrina:

What a fun weekend! Big thank you to Kip for an awesome race!